"This above all; to thine own self be truth"

Hermes Trimegistus, Secretum Secretorum (The Seven Steps), 1140.

The basis of all the alchemical transformations required to obtain the Stone (called the Great Work) is seven-stepped formula described by the Emerald Tablet of Hermes.History of the Tablet (largely summarised from Needham 1980, & Holmyard 1957)

The Tablet probably first appeared in the West in editions of the psuedo-Aristotlean Secretum Secretorum which was actually a translation of the Kitab Sirr al-Asar, a book of advice to kings which was translated into latin by Johannes Hispalensis c. 1140 and by Philip of Tripoli c.1243. Other translations of the Tablet may have been made during the same period by Plato of Tivoli and Hugh of Santalla, perhaps from different sources.